Blade Runners Better or Not?

Loads of people ask me me ‘just how good are these super duper running blades we’ve seen at the Paralympics? Answer: brilliant. I did my first marathon http://www.virginmoneylondonmarathon.com as an amputee in 1996 less than a year after I’d left hospital and since then the improvements in lower leg prosthesis are awesome. I finished my first in just over five and half hours. 10 years later I was nearly two hours faster. With a high activity limb I would run a mile in 10 to 11 minutes, after I got my first blade, run it in gradually and done some training I was well under seven minutes.

The next logical question is can an amputee have an advantage? From a mechanical, bio-mechanical and health science perspective it’s really difficult to measure this. I’ve worked with many healthcare professionals and one recently informed me that 52% of all health science statistics are made up in the pub! If I had to guess based on my own experience, when the carbon fibre is warmed up and on a perfectly flat, hard energy return surface like a running track or well surfaced flat road; I think my prosthesis feels slightly more powerful than my real leg. Any advantage however is immediately lost if you go onto a slightly uneven or soft surface. I can remember being third in a cross-country race for the road section and then dropping back to the rear of the field on an uneven muddy riverside path.

If there is a consensus amongst amputees and professionals it would seem to be that a double below knee amputee (with mature and robust stumps) on an even and flat surface might well have an advantage over an able-bodied athlete of similar stature and fitness.